Donna Summer: She could sing anything, anywhere, with anyone, at any time.

[MAY 20] Happy Sunday all! First let me attend to some personal
business - my MS Walk was yesterday. It was cold and wet, but we raised
some nice money thanks to your generosity. And for the first year, I was
not the only one in Donna gear. I had to load a hat to a teammate and it
just happened to be a Donna Summer one. (She's going to go see the
musical later this week too!) I have goodies to send to all my
donors and I will be working on that soon. :-)

[MAY 20] On to the musical! I was there again on May 17 - and they have
some more merchandise! There is a keyring that is a blue tassel with a
silver letter S. It reminds me of the graduation hat tassels. And
there are diva sunglasses! ($30). There is also a feather boa, a
mug , a shoulder bag, a hat, and a pouch. Still no sign of the
merchandise being online yet, but it's still early days. I also noticed
something about the show that I couldn't see from where I was sitting
when I first saw it. There is a LED sign that hangs over the
audience probably about halfway back in the orchestra section. On it
they identify where a particular scene is taking place - for example:
Grant AME Church in Boston, Musicland Studios in Munich, etc. The only
times I saw it say anything other than a location was right at the top
of the show where it simply said "Summer" and later it identified the
song White Boys as being from Hair. It was a nice little feature,
but not essential for following the story. I haven't been to the
mezzanine yet so I don't know if they have a similar sign.

[MAY 20] Oh wait - stop the presses! Before I forget, the cast of Summer
will be performing on Jimmy Fallon tomorrow night. If you can't catch
the show, it will probably be on
their
website the next day.

[MAY 20] Speaking of TV, Thalia (who is a co-producer of Summer: The
Musical) was on the Wendy Williams Show the other day to promote the
musical. You can watch that segment on
YouTube. (You can probably find the entire show online too,
but everything before Thalia was just about the royal wedding.)

[MAY 20]
The New York Times has a new article looking at disco musicals.
In it they admit that while critics are not fans of Summer: The Donna
Summer Musical, audiences ARE! (When I was there Thursday, EVERYONE -
that I cold see anyway - was up on their feet dancing for Last Dance!)

[MAY 20] In awards news, the Drama League announced it's winners the
other day. Summer did not pick up any trophies there which is not
overly surprising. The Drama League Awards have a different structure
than just about anything I have seen. The fact that they have so
many nominees with plays and musicals together and make and female
together plus the fact that once a person wins, they are not eligible to
be nominated ever again means that the Drama League Awards are not going
to be easy to win. The Chita Rivera Awards are being handed out as I
write this. So far they haven't reached any of the categories Summer is
nominated for. And of course the Tonys are coming up on June 10. WAIT!!
STOP THE PRESSES - they just announced the winner for Outstanding
Female Dancer in a Broadway Show - ARIANA DEBOSE! And for
Outstanding Choreography in a Broadway Show - SERGIO TRUJILLO! Congrats
guys! You earned it!

[MAY 20] The grosses for the week ending 5/13 are out. Summer took in
$1,125,078 - the best week it's had so far!

[MAY 20] Ariana DeBose (Disco Donna) has been busy. She's done an
interview for
BUILD series, and another one for
Backstage.

[MAY 20] On to the real Donna Summer. Hot Stuff 2018 continues to climb
the Billboard Dance Club Play charts for the week of May 26, it
moves from #19 to #15. :-)

[MAY 20]
Harpers Bazaar posted a slideshow of 10 iconic hairstyles that
endure the test of time. Slide #1 is Donna's Once Upon A Time cover
photo. :-)

[MAY 20] Bruce Sudano fans - he's been live on his couch again.
:-) This one is called
You Know What I Like. (And check out the Johnnyswim hoodie -
think he's a fan? LOL)

[MAY 20] I think that brings us to YouTube. Up first, Suecase Hall
has made a fan video for
Bad Girls to go with the new Original Hits CD. Then we have a
tribute video by Jesus, a
Motown Medley video by Suecase Hall, and a video for
The Queen Is Back that has enough footage of Queen Elizabeth II to
make me wonder how funny it would be to hear her try to sing the
song. (Seriously - how ridiculously funny would that be?
LOL) And Stor Dubine's video for
I
Got Your Love. (I have to tell you - I was thinking about this
video after I saw the musical. The way they use LED screens with Donna's
pic on them in some of the scenes reminds me so much of how Stor
decorated cartoon Donna's house with her pictures. )

[MAY 13] Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! I guess
Mother's Day is the best day to share this - Johnnyswim's new baby girl
has a name now. She is Luna Bird Ramirez and she is
adorable! I'm sure we can all look forward to seeing her on tour
with the family when she gets a little bigger. :-)

[MAY 13] On to the news. When I left you last week, Hot Stuff 2018
had debuted on the Billboard Dance Club Songs at #43 (week ending May
5). For the
week ending May 12, the song climbed to #31. And for those who have
early access to chart info (or who found a
sneaky back door into that info lol), we see it climb again to
#19 for the May 19 chart. What can I say? Deejays LOVE Donna!!!

[MAY 13] If you are going to the musical and are looking for something
to do afterwards,
Bond 45 now
hosts an after party after every performance of Summer: The Musical.
Now if you are wondering how to get there from the theater - just look
to your own 2 feet. Bond 45 is next door to the Lunt-Fontanne. :-) Just
dance your way out of the aisles, out on to the street and into the
restaurant! LOL

[MAY 13] You can listen to book writer Colman Domingo talking about the
musical on YouTube. Among other things he talks about when
it's like seeing audiences dancing and singing along. :-)

[MAY 13] I think that brings us to YouTube. Later this week we mark the
6th anniversary of Donna leaving us. So I'm going to start off with one
of my favorite clips ever because it really shows Donna's playful side,
and I can't watch it without smiling. It's Donna and Barry playing
around with
Could
It Be Magic. And another of my favorite clips is
MacArthur Park from Live & More Encore - and that's because of my
very happy memories of being there that night. (And yes I cheated on
both clips since neither is actually on YouTube! LOL) Moving on to
some more serious clips, we have Suecase Hall's video for
Netherlands, the audio for Omega Red (featuring Donna) on
Angel,
Sand On My Feet and
Be
Myself Again live (other favorites of mine), the amazing
symphonic version of
I
Will Live For Love, and because I feel like I need to leave
you with something fun a stampyourfeet video for
That's The Way It Is - how can you not smile at a bouncy song that
features Donna's name in the lyrics. :-)

[MAY 6] Greetings all and Happy Sunday. Let me start off with the
new Summer Fever Pick since I'm a few
days late with it. This month practice shouting "more, more, more" as we
celebrate Live & More. (Good god, I just realized that album is 40 years
old this year.... How is that even possible? LOL)

[MAY 6] I'm going to go a little out of order this week and start with
Johnnyswim because they have 2 new releases out now. The first is their
EP,
Goodbye Road with Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors. That just came
out May 4 and is for sale at all the usual music places. :-) The
other release was a huge surprise that Amanda and Abner have been
working on in secret for quite awhile now - 9 months to be exact.
The pair have welcomed a
new baby girl into the family! So congrats to the Ramirez clan -
she's adorable!

[MAY 6] On to Summer: The Donna Summer Musical! First up a little
explanation - Ariana DeBose injured her ankle recently, so if you were
at a show recently and saw her using a cane - that's why. Now I
think I mentioned last week that the Tony nominations were coming this
week. Well they did and we have nominations for Diva Donna LaChanze for
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a musical, and another for
Disco Donna Ariana DeBose for Best Performance by an actress in a
Featured Role in a musical. Congrats to both!

[MAY 6] In the land of reviews, we have a new one written by a fan named
David Messineo. It's a very good
review (and a fair one!) that you may have seen on Facebook. I will warn
you though that there are a few spoilers, so read it at your own risk if
you haven't seen the show yet. Now for those still smarting from
the less than stellar reviews from main stream media, the
Wall Street Journal says "Forget
the Bad Reviews; Donna Summer Musical Is Doing Well On Broadway." In
a nutshell, the article says that ticket sales are good, the show is a
crowd pleaser, Donna's global popularity is a draw for foreign
tourists, and there hasn't been a musical to truly tap into the disco
craze since Saturday Night Fever ran 20 years ago. If you want to read
the article for yourself and find yourself stuck behind a pay wall - try
clearing your browser cookies. (Or try a browser that you don't usually
use.)

[MAY 6] Speaking of sales - Summer: The Musical grossed over $1 million
opening week. :-) (The Wall Street Journal article says that
they probably could have made even more money that week, but they
gave out quite a few free tickets for the opening night show. You
know the press all got in for free! LOL) If you look at
Playbill's website, you can see how Summer's grosses compare to the
other shows currently on Broadway. (Hint - if you click on any of
the column headings - like "this week's gross" - you can reorder the
list so you can make better comparisons.)

[MAY 6] And speaking of Playbill, their store has the first musical
merchandise to be seen outside the theater. It's the
opening night Playbill. It can be yours for $15 or for an extra $30
you can get it framed.

[MAY 6] Moving on to the real Donna Summer - guess what? We have some
chart action! For the week ending May 5, Hot Stuff 2018 debuts on
the Billboard on the
Dance Club Songs chart at #43!

[MAY 6] And we have release news too. On The Radio is coming out again -
IN VINYL. Not just in any vinyl either. This will be pink swirl
colored vinyl. :-)

[APR 29] Happy Sunday all! Let's start with Summer: The Musical again.
We'll start with the one thing you are all wondering about - a cast
album. Guess what? They are recording it tonight and tomorrow according
to a tweet from LaChanze. So we shouldn't have to wait too long for it.
:-)

[APR 29] On to awards.... yes, there are some award nominations to talk
about. The
Drama Desk Award nominations are out and LaChanze is up for best
actress in a musical for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. Those awards
will be handed out June 3. Then we have the
Chita Rivera Awards which honor dance on stage and screen.
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical picked up nominations for Sergio
Trujillo for Outstanding Choreography in a Broadway Show, Summer: The
Musical for Outstanding Ensemble in a Broadway Show, and Ariana DeBose
for Outstanding Female Dancer in a Broadway Show. Those awards
will be handed out on May 20. And then we will be looking to the
Tony Award announcements on Tuesday, so stay tuned. And of course
- congrats to all the nominees!

[APR 29]
New York Theater Guide covered opening night at Summer and they have
a bunch of red carpet photos. They also have nice things to say
about the show - they seem to have avoided that instant hatred of
jukebox musicals. LOL They also posted the
House Capacity figures for Broadway shows. For the week ending
April 22 (the last week we have numbers for so far), Summer: The
Donna Summer Musical had the highest gains in attendance. And of
course, THAT means more than reviews - it's all about filling the seats.
:-) And on a side note, someone in NY checked the TKTS booth the other
day to see if they has any tickets for Summer. They did NOT.
:-) Let me explain for those who don't know about the TKTS booth.
That is a place (well actually 2 places) in Manhattan where you can grab
discounted tickets for that day's shows. You never know what they will
have available until you get there because it all depends on which shows
have unsold seats. If they had nothing for Summer, then that means that
there were no unsold seats - which is a good thing. :-)

[APR 29] I almost forgot - the 40th anniversary Blu-Ray edition of
Thank God It's Friday is due out Tuesday. Extras are not
listed and frankly, I don't expect there to be any extras. They
are only charging 8 or 9 dollars as of this writing which is less money
than the regular DVD release.

[APR 29] I think that brings us to YouTube. Let's have some fun!
The musical picked up some dance award nominations, so in honor of
that, let's show off the Diva's dance moves. So of course we have
to start with the famous robot dance in
I
Feel Love. Then we have the skirt flipping moves of
Hot Stuff, the music video moves in
Dinner With Gershwin and
Love's About To Change My Heart, the young choreographed moved of
Meglio Stasera, and my favorite clip ever - the playful and fun
moves of Donna with Barry Manilow in
Could
It Be Magic.

[APR 24] Congrats to cast member Afra Hines who received the Gypsy Robe
on opening night. For those who don't know, the Gypsy Robe is a
Broadway tradition where the member of the ensemble of a show who has
the most Broadway credits receives a special robe to "bless" the show.
You can read the whole history of the
tradition here. Personally I think it's a pretty cool idea.
:-) Here's an interesting bit of trivia for you - they are
planning to
change the name of the Gypsy Robe to something else for next season.
So Summer: The Musical will be the last show to receive the robe under
the name "Gypsy Robe."

[APR 24] The grosses for last week are out. You can see them on
Broadway World. Sales are up! (Keep in mind that the cut off for
these figures is April 22. So those are all still figures for the
previews.)

[APR 24] Reviews are out.... there are a ton of them, and before
you read any of them be aware that some may have spoilers. I'm
going to make it easy for me and link you to a
Playbill page that has most of the reviews. And I will also give you
this
Broadway World link with highlights from the reviews. (And they will
update that page as more come in, so return to it every so often.)
Now for the not so fun thing to report - a lot of the reviews are not
good. But don't let that put you off from seeing the show. There
are a lot of things at play here - number one being that things that
critics like and things that audiences like can be two VERY different
things. And frankly, what I am hearing from people who have been
seeing the show is that they are having a GREAT time. The audiences have
been extremely enthusiastic and really THAT'S the thing that will make a
show a success. Also, the vibe I am getting from the critics is
that they are not overly fond of the whole jukebox biographical show
genre anyway. (I might have gotten that impression from this opening
quote from the New York Times review: "The biographical jukebox
musical — of which “Jersey Boys” provides a shining example, thanks to
all the Brylcreem — is the cockroach of Broadway." LOL) But I
would also like to point out that even though critics are not fond of
the show overall, they do seem to like all 3 leading ladies (as well
they should!) and there have been some positive nuggets in there as
well. My favorite quote comes from the Chicago Tribune: "But
I’ve sat in enough shows to say this: On Thursday night at the
Lunt-Fontanne, the audience did not just respond to the music, it craved
it, and the feeling it hoped it might bring, with an intensity of a
force I don’t recall ever seeing before. It wasn’t so much a desire for
“Mamma Mia!”-style fun as something more existential, an elixir that
might help you forget you’ll never have that recipe again."
In other words - this guy thinks that the audience will make this show a
success. :-) And let me throw one more thing at you.
I've been saying this all along here and there (probably mostly on
Facebook) that the musical Wicked was hated by critics when it came out.
And yet it found its audience and is still running over 10 years later.
(Plus one of its leads picked up a Tony.) There is an article on
The Daily Beast on exactly how such a critically panned show became
a hit. And what it boils down to is that it found its audience. So
critics be damned - if Summer finds its audience, it will do well. :-)

[APR 22] Happy Earth Day all! We're gonna start with the musical again.
:-) As you know, tomorrow is the official opening day. And that
means we can expect to see reviews starting on Tuesday. We can
also expect to see lots of activity on the various social media pages:
Facebook,
Twitter
and
Instagram. They will have coverage of the red carpet starting
at 6. And I would imaging the cast members may chime in as well
during the day if they find a free moment or two. :-)

[APR 22] Summer: The Donna Summer Musical has already picked up a couple
of award nominations.
The Drama League has announced their list of nominees and included
are Summer for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway
Musical, and both Ariana DeBose and LaChanze for the Distinguished
Performance Award. Now these awards are a bit different than you may be
used to. In the case of the Distinguished Performer Award, there are
about a billion nominees because it's not broken up by musical and play
or by male and female. Also, once someone wins that award once - they
can never win it again. So it's a big deal to win it. :-) I know
you will be wondering about other awards too - such as the Tonys.
The musical has officially opened up just in the nick of time to be
eligible for this year.
Tony
nominations are scheduled to be announced on May 1. Those are usually
webcast early in the morning. Other key awards to look out for are the
Drama Desk Awards. Those nominees will be announced April 26 and
we MAY have missed the cutoff for that.

[APR 22] When I left you last weekend, we were expecting the cast of
Summer to appear on the Today Show. Well, they were on as scheduled and
you can watch the clips online. First up is
She Works Hard For The Money. In the play, this song is
performed as Donna has realized she's been screwed by Casablanca and she
is trying to regain control of her career. It is sung by Diva
Donna as Disco Donna acts out (through dance) the whole taking care of
business thing. It will make sense when you see it. The other
performance is
MacArthur Park - this is where Donna gets to show off that she's a
real singer and not just a disco queen. It starts with Disco Donna
and then Diva and Duckling join in. (Can I just say here that I
love the way the costumes are handles - all 3 Donnas in the same colors
but in styles that are suitable for the ages they are playing.) On and
speaking of the 3 Donnas - I recommend you follow them all on Instagram
because you sometimes get some good behind the scenes stuff from them.
You can find them at
Storm Lever,
Ariana
DeBose and
LaChanze.
Ariana DeBose tends to post the most (she's also very active on
Twitter),
but all 3 were pretty active when they did the Today Show.

[APR 22] We have articles!
BroadwayBox.com has a list of questions the stars and creators of
Summer would ask Donna if they could. The
Boston Globe has a story about the show,
Playbill has a short article with some new photos,
Dance Magazine has an article on the show, and The Ensemblist has an
article by Aurelia Michael who is the swing for
Summer: The Musical. (For those who don't know, the a swing is an
actor who covers multiple roles in a production.) We also have a
video review from someone who attended the show. I agreed with
some of what he said, but not with everything. But hey, everyone is
entitled to an opinion...... as long as it agrees with mine! LOL
(Only kidding.) AND - I have a special surprise article for you. Ken
Allan is back from a long sabbatical with his van of drag queens, and he
has seen Summer: The Musical. So we have a new
Ken's Korner that I have
relegated to a separate page because there are SPOILERS. So if you
haven't seen the show yet, read it at your own risk. You have been
warned! Oh! And as I write this,
Playbill just added another article called "& Things You Might Not
Know About Donna Summer." Let me take a quick peek. OK -
different people from the musical each state one thing they didn't know
about Donna. There's nothing there that will surprise a diehard
fan and nothing that will spoil the musical for you.

[APR 22] I think that's all I have on the musical. Let's move on to the
new compilation Summer; The Original Hits. It's out now and most people
are finding that Target only has a few of their special copies with the
extra tracks. One of the posters on the forum picked up a copy and
he very kindly photographed the CD and the booklet so you can see what
it looks like. You can see it
here.

[APR 22] I have a
random interview for you from 2012. If you recall, Donna dis a duet
with Darwin Hobbs for one of his albums, and after she passed he talked
about her a little on the radio.

[APR 22] Let's move on to Bruce for a minute. He recently appeared on
the Songcraft podcast. In it he talks about songwriting and Donna. You
can listen to it
here.

[APR 22] I think it's time to head over to YouTube. What should we
do this week? How about Donna as a blonde - the Mistaken Identity clips?
First up is a
1991 concert from Yokahama (the whole thing - and yes, the only clip
here with actual blonde hair. LOL.) Then we have the
Work That Magic video,
Say A Little Prayer live in Brazil, a liveandmore video for
Fred Astaire, and
Friends Unknown live.

[APR 22] And finally, I an still fundraising for Multiple Sclerosis.
Thank you to all who have donated so far and for those who would still
like to, it's never too late. :-) My link is
here.

[APR 15] Happy Sunday all! Let's start off with a special
announcement for tomorrow morning. The cast of Summer: The Donna Summer
Musical will be performing on NBC's Today Show twice. The first time
will be at approximately 8:50 AM and the second time will be in
the 10 to 11 AM hour. Presumably the clips will show up later on the
Today Show website.
While this is going on, cast member Afra Himes (ensemble, understudy for
Disco Donna) will take over
@DonnaSummerBway
Instagram stories for some behinds the scenes stuff.

[APR 15] As long as we are talking musical - Ariana DeBose (Disco Donna)
did a Facebook live session where she answered a few questions. You can
watch
it here, but a couple of things that came out of her session were
that there is definitely a cast album planned (but she doesn't now the
exact timeline yet) and that they are still making changes here and
there to the show. She doesn't say specifically what has changed - just
that the changes that have been made so far are "smart" and they
"clarify the story telling". At some point the show will be "frozen" and
then no more changes will be made. Storm Lever (Duckling Donna)
did one for Instagram, but I can't find that one archived on the site
anywhere, and unfortunately when I watched, my stream was so bad that I
missed a lot.

[APR 15] The magazine "Where" (usually found at NYC hotels) is a guide
to the stuff going on in New York for visitors looking for things to do.
The April edition has Summer: The Musical on the cover. Now if you
don't happen to be hanging around any NYC hotels, you can see the
magazine
online here - you can even download it if you want to.

[APR 15] The report for the weekly grosses on Broadway comes out on
Mondays. So last week's numbers won't be out until tomorrow. But
the week ending 4/8 the show grossed 893,307 which is higher than it
grossed the previous week( 569,993). Now of course, the first week
wasn't a full week since the show didn't open until March 28. Tomorrow I
will be eager to see a full week compared to another full week.
:-) Number trackers can keep an eye on
this link if you don't want to wait for my update.

[APR 15] BOSTON - guess what? You are having yet another Donna Summer
Day. :-) The 5th annual event is scheduled for June 22 in City
Hall Square. There will be the usual music and roller skating, but
details on performances will be announced at a later date. They
always have members of Donna's family on hand for the festivities.
:-)

[APR 15] Disco fans, the
BBC website has an article about why Disco should be taken
seriously.

[APR 15] Johnnyswim fans - their new song,
Ring The Bells is now available for sale at Amazon, iTunes and other
music vendors. You can read a review of the song on
AtwoodMagazine.com. Their upcoming EP,
Goodbye Road with Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, is expected
out May 4.

[APR 15] Bruce Sudano fans - he's Live On The Couch again with a new
song called Anyway. You can see it on
Facebook. (Hmmm - maybe his next album should be "The Couch
Sessions"? LOL)

[APR 8] Greetings all! Let's start off with Summer: The Donna
Summer Musical again. Ah, but where to start there... OK, first up
there is a new (and BIG) ad up for the show on 42nd and Broadway.
Let's call that a prime selfie spot. :-) Other promotion is
happening too.
Playbill has an interview with LaChanze (Diva Donna) and Ariana
Debose (Disco Donna) was on PBS's One On One With Steve Abubato the
other night. If (like me) you were asleep when it aired, have no fear!
It's already on
YouTube. And I am told that the cast of the show will be on
NBC's Today Show on April 16. Usually when a Broadway cast hits
the morning shows, it means we get to see a performance. Now this is
just a total guess, but I'm thinking they will either do MacArthur Park
or Last Dance because all 3 Donnas get to shine together on both of
those numbers.

[APR 8] In completely non-professional review news, my aunt Rose
went to the matinee of Summer: The Musical yesterday. She's not a
diehard like us, she's just a casual fan. But when she left the theater,
she emailed me one word to describe the show - "WHOA!" She enjoyed
herself. :-D Oh and I saw on Facebook, there has been one
update so far - but it's not to the show itself. It's to the drink menu.
Now there is one called Hot Stuff. (Yes, I find the drink menu
entertaining. LOL)

[APR 8] If you haven't been to TheDonnaSummerMusical.com in awhile, go
check it out now. They've added tweets, cast bios, video from the press
day and the tv ads. And I am sure they will keep adding things as the
show gets rolling. :-) Oh and if you are into tracking the
play's grosses, keep an eye on
this link. As I write this, they only show last week's
numbers, but they should be updating again either tomorrow or Tuesday.

[APR 8] If you are in NY and are looking for discounted tickets to
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, good news - they have announced
their rush ticket policy. They will have $40 tickets available at the
box office (as soon as it opens) for that day's performance. Patrons are
limited to 2 tickets only. They are non-transferable, subject to
availability, and they may only be partial-view seats. So if you
find yourself with a free evening sometime and want to take a chance -
head over to the box office.

[APR 8] Moving on to the new compilation, Summer: The Original Hits. As
I started in a previous update - the extra mixes (and the song
White Boys from Haare) are available on the deluxe digital release, and
not on the CD.... UNLESS.... you go to Target. Yes, Target will have a
special edition of the CD that includes the same tracks as the deluxe
digital release. So if you are a CD person, head to Target.

[APR 8] Moving on to Johnnyswim news. The duo has a new song coming out
April 6 called Ring The Bells. If you have
Spotify you can
presave the song now and hear it in its entirety. If you don't do
Spotify, you can hear a clip on
Facebook. You can even see the lyrics on
Instagram.

[APR 8] Bruce Sudano fans, check out
video of him
at City Winery from March 14. He sings It Ain't Cool, Analyzing
Stars, and With Angels On A Carousel.

[APR 8] I think that brings us to YouTube. In honor of the 50th
anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, let's start with the
New Radio Millennium Mix of State Of Independence. (It's the one
that includes part of the I Have A Dream speech.) Then let's
keep going with some classic mixes. We have
I
Feel Love (MAW 86th St. mix),
Last Dance (MAW short version), the Jr. Vasquez long DMC mix if
Melody Of Love,
Love Is The Healer (Thunder dub), and the studio 54 mix of
Love On And On.

[APR 3] Happy Tuesday all! Let's call this the weekly
update. LOL And II am going to start off with some stuff
about Summer: The Donna Summer Musical again. The first week's
grosses are available and the musical took in $568,993. Both
Playbill.com
and
BroadwayWorld.com track the numbers for anyone who wants to watch
those. I'm no expert in Broadway sales figures, but I would love to be
able to compare Summer's preview numbers with some other preview show
numbers from past shows. Then I could get a better idea of how
much of a good start we are off to. Now both of those sites have
comparisons with other currently running shows, and when you look at
numbers to compare you have to remember that not all theaters are the
same size so potential earnings are not the same. And the shows listed
vary from limited engagement productions, to long running hits, to shows
that may be on their way out. So if you scroll down the list of grosses
on Playbill, you will find that it's not a level playing field.

[APR 3] Speaking of Ariana DeBose, she tweeted that she will be on
One On One with Steve Adubato on PBS (NY channel 13) at 12:30 AM
tonight. She's also posted a video on
Twitter
of her getting ready to take the stage in Summer: The Musical.
(HEY! I just had a random thought. All these years we diehard fans
have groaned when people have written "Donna SummerS" instead of
"Donna Summer". But now that we have the musical and there are 3
people playing the role, maybe "Donna SummerS" is correct? Or should it
be "DonnaS Summer"? LOL)

[APR 3] Moving on to the new hits collection, Summer: The Original Hits,
947wls.com has an article about the compilation and PR Newswire has
the
press release. Here's the interesting thing from the press release -
the 2 remixes at the end of the album are exclusive to the DIGITAL
deluxe edition. So if you order the CD you won't get them.

[APR 3] I guess I can move on to Johnnyswim now. They will be touring
with Needtobreathe this Summer/Fall. Dates and ticket info are
posted on
Needtobreathe.com.

[APR 3] On to Youtube. Let's start off with a song I have been
returning many times since I saw the musical, and that's
Be
Myself Again. Then we have
My
Life (which was listed in La Jolla's information on the musical, but
which is also not currently in the show.) Then let's move to some
rehearsal clips from Summer: The Musical. We have one video from
Theatermania, one from
Broadway.com, one from
The Donna Summer Musical, and one from
Tamsen Fadal TV.

[APR 3] And finally.... some of you saw this on Facebook already, but I
am officially announcing
my annual MS Walk! (I have a couple of
donations already - THANK YOU!) As you know, I like to have out
some little tokens of my appreciation to those who donate. This
year, I had some opens made up to commemorate the musical. AND when I
was at the show the other night, I grabbed a few extra goodies to share
with my top donors. The top 3 will get an official Summer: The Musical
keyring, and the top 5 will get a copy of Playbill. If you donate
multiple times before the walk (May 19), I will add up the total of your
contributions to figure out your standing. In the event of a tie,
I will go by the date the donations were made and take the first high
donors. Here's what the pens and keyrings look like:

As always, donations made before this official posting are STILL
eligible for goodies. :-) And as always, if I hit my goal of
$517, I will walk in my Donna gear. (If I don't hit that goal, I am
screwed because I don't know where my team shirt is! LOL)

[APR 2] The new Summer Fever Pick is up! This month it is Once Upon A
Time. (I'm getting there with the updates - slowly but surely, one
piece at a time. :-) )

[APR 1 no wait APR 2 it's after midnight here]
Part 2 of my show report is up
now. It's the spoiler version so reader beware! I'm off to bed now!

[APR 1] This week's updates will be a bit weird - and not because it's
April 1! LOL I saw the musical Friday and I am trying to
work on my show report. (I wanted to do this yesterday but my boss made
me work! UGH!) So, my report will be in 2 parts and I will
have some images to add as well. This is going to delay both the
regular update and the changing of the Summer Fever Pick. I will
squeeze all of these in as I can.
Part 1 of my show report is now up.
Please excuse the typos, I consider that page a work in progress still.
(In fact you will see a couple of place holders for pics and links
there.) I'm about to work on part 2 of my report. It's getting
late but I'm hoping to have it tonight (fingers crossed!) It's sort of
handwritten at the moment - I just have to decipher my own writing and
type it up.

[MAR 24] Happy Saturday all! This week we are starting off with a
new compilation called
Summer: The Original Hits due out April 20. Now BEFORE you
start yelling about yet another compilation - this one is a little
different. It is specifically geared toward people (casual fans) who
will see the musical but who may not be as fully familiar with the
original songs as we are. As such, the album is coming out just 3 days
before the official opening date of April 23, and the tracks are all
ones used in the musical. Let me give you the track list: I Feel
Love, Love To Love You, I Remember Yesterday, On My Honor, Faster And
Faster, MacArthur Park, Heaven Knows, Enough Is Enough, Pandora's Box,
On The Radio, I Love You, Bad Girls, She Works Hard For The Money,
Unconditional Love, Hot Stuff Last Dance, and as a bonus on iTunes
(probably for us diehards - and probably at Amazon if you look at the
MP3 listing) they added the Rosabel Radio mix of MacArthur Park and the
Ralph Rosario Eric Ibiza 2018 mix of Hot Stuff. That
Hot Stuff mix is actually available to purchase now. Oh, and I
forgot to mention that the MP3 version of the collection also includes
White Boys from the German soundtrack to Haare. Now, EVERY one of those
songs was used in the musical when it played La Jolla. There are a
couple of other songs that were also used that UMG would have had to pay
to include: Stamp Your Feet, The Queen Is Back, To Turn The Stone,
Friends Unknown and My Life. So this album should tide at least
the casual fans over until a cast album is recorded. :-) On a side
note - I have tickets for the Friday performance this coming week, so I
will have first hand reports to make on the next update. :-)

[MAR 24] Speaking of the musical - I have finally seen the TV
commercials on the air. A couple of nights this week I was watching The
Late Show With Stephen Colbert and the ad ran shortly before midnight.
:-) It was very exciting! Also, I find myself being followed
all over the internet by ads for Summer: The Musical which on the one
hand tells me that I really should clear my cookies and history more
often. But on the other hand, I do get a kick out of seeing those ads.
LOL

[MAR 24] There is a new non-profit organization called
The Songstress Hall
Of Fame. They took to
Twitter to
announce the following inductees: Adele, Cher, Aretha, Loretta
Lynn, Dolly Parton, Katy Perry, Linda Ronstadt, Diana Ross, Barbra, Tina
Turner, Dionne Warwick and of course DONNA SUMMER. :-)

[MAR 24] Fan club fans - Tom Gilliam is looking for some help. He's been
funding the Fan Club out of his own pocket since 1986. It's been getting
more expensive as time has gone by so now Tom has a GoFundMe to help
raise money to pay for upgrades and updates to the fan club site
software, etc. If you would like to contribute, the link is
right here.

[MAR 24] Let's move on to Johnnyswim. Guess what? They are hitting the
road again! (Which is absolutely NO surprise to anyone who follows
Johnnyswim. They do love the road! LOL) Let me give
you the link to the
Facebook video where they teased the announcement of the dates. (You
want watch that because Joaquin makes a guest appearance in that.
LOL) Then the following day they listed cities and dates in
another video. They've got shows almost every day from August 10 to
October 7 all over the USA. If they are coming to your city, grab some
tickets when they become available. Johnnyswim puts on a GREAT show!

[MAR 24] In Bruce Sudano news,
TasteOfCountry.com listed their "10 Disco-Country Songs We Can't
Stop Dancing To." They included Starting Over Again which as you all
know was written by Bruce and Donna. (And it's always fun to hear Bruce
talk about how Donna contributed to that song. LOL)

[MAR 17] Happy St. Patrick's Day all! So you know we have to start
with the musical again. (Can you believe it's opening in just a couple
of weeks?) First up is an article in
Broadway News explaining why the cast is predominantly female -
including some women who play male roles. (Short answer - to create more
roles for women on Broadway and to honor Donna's "central mission" of
female empowerment. )

[MAR 17] We also have 2 new TV commercials for
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. Now I haven't seen them on
TV yet - but that may be because I'm not watching the right channels
lately. Neither ad says much about the show - but that's in line
with other musical ads I have seen lately. Here is the
first ad, and here is
the second.

[MAR 17]
CaribbeanLifeNews.com was at the March 8 preview of Summer: The
Donna Summer Musical. There is an article, but it talks more about
Donna than about the musical. It even explains what happened with that
sitcom Donna was talking about making around 1989 or so. (I think
she mentioned it in her interview with Arsenio Hall if I recall.)

[MAR 17] Moving on to the land of remixes - our own Summer2k (who now
uses the name DJ Moch) got his hands on the original stems for Bad Girls
and has used them to build his
Epic 12" Disco Remix. This is not your typical fan mix where
the mixer has to work with or around what was already there. He got all
the separate pieces so he could do anything he wanted to with them -
like the pros get to. It's amazing - go check it out! :-) I
also want to mention that DJ Moch has said that he did this mix as "a
tribute to Donna and her amazing musical legacy." He also revisited his
old
One Of A Kind mix and incorporated some of the new vocals that
turned up in the new John Morales mix.

[MAR 17] In the land of auctions, one of Donna's old Casablanca
contracts was up for auction late last year. It didn't sell
(probably because none of US knew about it then) but you can still see
the listing with a couple of pages.

[MAR 17] Bruce Sudano fans - he's posted another video from his recent
concert. This one is the end of
Ball Of Confusion where Bruce is joined by Pepe Cardona (froma Alive
N Kickin'), Eddie Hokenson (from the Brooklyn Dreams) and of course
Randy Mitchell from The Candyman Band and from Donna's band.) At the
moment, Bruce is hanging around Brooklyn while he records some new
tracks. :-)

[MAR 17] I think that brings us to YouTube. Let's start off with
another DJ Moch mix. This one is
Netherlands - Donna vs. Dan Fogelberg. Then we have Donna's
interview on
The Arsenio Hall Show. (Yes, I remembered correctly - this is the
interview where she talks about the sitcom.) Now let's just go into
YouTube freefall and see what comesup. We have a
2004 UK interview
plugging The Journey, Nathan's
2008 tour video, and his clip of Donna singing
La
Dolce Vita on a plane in 2009., a fan video for
Adonai, and another one for
Valley Of The Moon. And then just for fun, let's bring back
the clip of Donna with Barry Manilow fooling around with
Could
It Be Magic. :-)

[MAR 11] Greetings all! Well, you know we have to start with Summer: The
Donna Summer Musical. As you probably know, the show is currently
in rehearsal and the press was in to do a little filming recently.
So you will want to check out this
short clip on YouTube with a bit of the music. Then there is a
video at
BroadwayWorld.com with interviews with various people associated
with the production - even Bruce. (If you use an ad blocker, you may
have to turn it off to get the video to play.)
Playbill.com has photos from the rehearsal, and
Theatermania.com has video of MacArthur Park.

[MAR 11] in remix news, John Morales has reworked the MacArthur Park
Suite. You can hear it as part of the
John Morales M&M mix starting at about 27:30. (Sorry - there
are some vocal watermarks over the track here and there that are pretty
distracting.) Oh, and I left out the best part - EXTRA vocals in One Of
A Kind! :-) Crack open that vault! LOL

[MAR 11] Moving on you Bruce - as you know he has a couple of recent
performances including a headlining event where he sneaked in a couple
of surprises. Some of those have made it to his Facebook
page. :-) He's got the new song
Forbidden Fruit with Dina Regine, the new song
Walking Down The Road with Mike Montali, and the not quite so new
song
Bad Girls with Eddie Hokenson. :-)

[MAR 4] Happy Oscar Sunday all! It's a new month so it's time for the
new Summer Fever Pick. This month, I
Remember Yesterday.

[MAR 4] Since it's Oscar night, let's start with some movie news. Thank
God It's Friday is coming out on Blu-Ray as a special 40th anniversary
edition on May 1. You can pre-order now at places like
Amazon. It looks like it's just the film with no extras. The disc is
being put out by
Mill Creek Entertainment, and you can see full details on the
release there.

[MAR 4] Moving on to the musical - the box office for the
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is now open! So if you are in NYC and still
need tickets, you can just stop off at the theater and get tickets while
admiring Donna on the marquee! And if you head to
Instagram, you can see a couple of pics from rehearsals.

[MAR 4] Moving on to Quincy Jones. No he hasn't said anything new about
Donna, Michael Jackson, or anyone else he talked about in recent
interviews. What he has done is
apologize for his recent "wordvomit" after an intervention from his
family. Apparently his daughters took him aside and told him to cool it,
and he's taken that to heart.

[MAR 4] Bruce fans - don't forget he's playing
City Vineyard in NYC on Tuesday. If you are in the area, stop in and
enjoy the show!

"Oh, God! (laughs) I don't think there can be just one because there
have been so many of them. We did a concert about four years ago and it
wasn't even in one of the big cities, but it was a pretty large concert
and the whole first two rows were entirely in drag as me."